George Realmuto’s young patients came from different backgrounds, but they had one thing in common: They were experiencing intractable psychosis after smoking marijuana with high levels of THC.
As medical director of the Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Facility in Willmar, Realmuto, M.D., a practicing psychiatrist and professor emeritus in the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry, worked closely with these young people who’d been sent to his hospital for treatment, prescribing antipsychotic drugs and a range of therapeutic interventions to help them find stability during their multiple-week hospital stays.
[image_caption]George M. Realmuto[/image_caption]
Realmuto, who retired from his position at the Willmar hospital in June 2019, recalled that his patients’ symptoms were interfering with their ability to function in everyday life.
“Their thinking was not linear,” he said. “They were bringing fictitious ideas into an everyday problem like, ‘Let’s do some math homework.’ Their response was, ‘I can’t do math homework because the numbers fill up my brain and then it will explode.’ A kid whose brain is working like that is not going to do well in school.”
Realmuto chalked up these psychotic responses in young people to their ingestion of marijuana containing elevated levels of THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis, achieved with the help of genetic engineering and cultivation.
“The potency of THC in cannabis makes a difference,” he said. In past decades, he continued, “what we called ‘Woodstock weed’ had a potency of between 1-3 percent. Through modern agricultural developments, the potency of marijuana can now reach 20 percent.”
High levels of THC, Realmuto said, can have a negative impact on the developing brain. With the real potential for legalization of recreational cannabis on the horizon in Minnesota, he’s become a vocal advocate for pushing the state’s legal age for cannabis purchase and use from the proposed 21 to 25, an age when he and many of his neurodevelopmentalist colleagues agree that human brain is more fully developed, lessening the risk of adverse reactions from the use of cannabis with high THC levels.
[image_caption]State Rep. Ryan Winkler[/image_caption]
“Cannabis, alcohol and tobacco all are products that exist in our state and are widely used,” he said. “Cannabis is less risky than alcohol and tobacco for our health. To set a higher age standard for cannabis than we do for alcohol and tobacco doesn’t make any sense from a health perspective.”
Marijuana is already readily available to many young people in Minnesota, Winkler said. The legalization of recreational cannabis would help regulate its distribution and make buyers aware of the potency levels of the products they were buying, potentially reducing the use of more dangerous high-THC strains.
“Two-thirds of teens say they can get pot very easily or at least as easily as they can get alcohol,” Winkler said. “Making it illegal and trying to use the police to stop its distribution doesn’t work.”
Realmuto said that there is a clear divide between pro-legalization legislators like Winkler and mental health professionals who have seen firsthand the negative impact of the drug on younger patients.
“This is where the author of the adult cannabis bill and the scientists part ways,” he said. “There is not a prevention plan or an educational plan that tells teens, ‘This is harmful,’ the way there are prevention and education programs in the state for alcohol and opioids. Without that, teens believe that because it is called ‘recreational’ marijuana, it would be OK or safe for them.”
To advocates who say that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, Realmuto said, “For adults, that may be true, but unfortunately for those with developing brains — a brain develops until it is 25 — there are real harms.”
[image_caption]Dr. Sara Polley[/image_caption]
“At any given time, I’d say we’ve got at least one to two kids in our inpatient unit that are psychotic secondary to using marijuana or a substance that they didn’t know was mixed with it,” Polley said. “The marijuana that is available now is much more potent than marijuana that was smoked in the past. Every year it gets more potent.”
She said that though she supports the legalization of recreational cannabis in Minnesota, her experience with young patients has led her to agree that the legal age for purchase should be raised.
“Because the brain is still not finished developing in someone under the age of 25 or 26, they are more sensitive to being impacted or disrupted than someone whose brain has fully developed. I’m in the camp of supporting the later age — age 25.”
[image_caption]Dr. Joshua Stein[/image_caption]
“The underdeveloped brain is more complicated than the 30-year-old brain,” Stein said. “A 30-year-old brain is a very well manicured hedge. It has already gone through extensive pruning. A young brain is full of twigs and sticks. It is an unpruned brain and therefore it is at very high risk.”
He supports the idea that the legal age for purchase of cannabis in Minnesota should be higher than the proposed 21. “I think that from a medical perspective, 25 makes the most sense,” Stein said. “That should be the goal if we are going to legalize.”
A different definition of adulthood?
Setting the legal age for the purchase of recreational cannabis at 25 would require Minnesotans to redefine their definition of what it means to be an adult, said Zachary Robins, a Minneapolis-based attorney who has worked with a number of companies in the state’s cannabis industry.
Minnesotans age 21, Robins said, “are an age group that can legally purchase cigarettes and alcohol and go to war. We’d be telling them, ‘You need to be 25 — the same age that you need to be to reserve a rental car — to purchase recreational cannabis’? I don t think that’s practical whatsoever.”
[image_caption]Zachary Robins[/image_caption]
“I don’t think it is wise to spend federal, state and local dollars to police the sale of this product between the ages of 21 and 25,” he said.
Realmuto said that the argument that alcohol is legal at age 21 so therefore marijuana should also be legal at 21 is “frivolous.”
“The way the brain develops, there are nerve tracks, especially in adolescents, where there are a lot of changes in the brain. If you influence a developing brain with THC, it will develop differently. In some cases, there will be psychosis.”
Nationwide, the recreational cannabis legalization train is already out of the station, Winkler said. Teens generally consider marijuana to be a safer alternative to alcohol, tobacco or other drugs. If the legal age for recreational cannabis were set at 25, young Minnesotans would continue to purchase the drug from illegal sources, steal from their parents’ stash — or drive to a neighboring state. “Making pot illegal and trying to use the police to stop its distribution just doesn’t work,” Winkler said. In U.S. states that have so far legalized recreational cannabis, the legal age for purchasing is, across the board, 21.
Winkler added that taking a criminal justice-focused approach to recreational marijuana has “completely failed to keep cannabis out of the hands of those young people that they are concerned about. The question is, ‘How do we make sure that kids get the right education about this drug and how do we have control over the cannabis that exists in our community?’” Revenue tied to the legal sale of recreational cannabis will help provide those resources, he believes.
Simply accepting the fact that young Minnesotans already have easy access to marijuana as a reason to set the legal age for its recreational sale at age 21 feels like accepting the status quo without knowing all the risks, Stein said. “More kids use marijuana than use alcohol. We know that. It is standard across high schools. Most kids think it is natural and do not think it is a risk for them.”
Acceptance of this reality ignores the fact that heavy use of cannabis with high THC levels can, Stein said, “really cause psychotic issues in children and adolescents, especially those that may be already prone to schizophrenia. What we are seeing in the hospital is a group of children who smoked marijuana and became psychotic after regular use.”
The unifying element in the cases of psychosis in patents under age 25 is sustained, heavy use of cannabis, Polley added.
“We know that when it comes to brain development, that the frontal lobe, the part of your brain that helps with impulse control and decision making, is still under construction into the mid-20s,” she said. “Research has shown that regular marijuana use impacts the development of that part of the brain and can create life-long deficits for individuals who use marijuana three times a week or more.”
[image_caption]Dr. Jacob Mirman[/image_caption]
“Legally available drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are obviously infinitely more damaging to the body than cannabis,” Mirman said. If used inappropriately, he added, other legally prescribed drugs, such as “amphetamines, benzos, antidepressants are all much more damaging than cannabis.”
Mirman certifies patients with qualifying conditions for medical marijuana, but he said he actually isn’t a proponent of the recreational use of any substance. “I think it isn’t a good idea to recreationally use any drug at any age,” he said. “The younger you are, the worse it is.”
Polley, Realmuto and Stein all accept that the legalization of recreational cannabis is inevitable in Minnesota. They just don’t want their concerns about the dangers of excessive use for the developing brain to get pushed aside.
“As we take these steps toward recreational legalization we should have an awareness of the dramatic risk to the young brain,” Stein said. “We need to consider that as we take steps forward and be thoughtful.”
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Handle with care
Robins explains that his advocacy for the legalization of recreational marijuana does not make him an advocate for its overuse. He said that recreational legalization will eventually reduce the drug’s illicit, forbidden feel: When an adult can purchase cannabis at store just as they can purchase a six-pack of beer, people will use it more responsibly.
That’s largely been the experience in states with longer histories of recreational legalization, he said. “There are certain social norms that we all just understand with alcohol that we take for granted, like, ‘You do not show up for work intoxicated.’ It is also a social norm that you should not show up to work stoned.”
Polley supports her colleagues in the assertion that 25 is a safer age for recreational cannabis, but she said that she sometimes takes a more relaxed approach when working with her young patients. Avoiding cannabis altogether is the safest route for young people, she believes, but there have been times when she’s struck a bargain.
“I’m probably more on the liberal end compared to most of my physician colleagues,” Polley said. For her, it’s all about moderation: “There are some patients where my perspective is, ‘If you are smoking every week but are still functioning and still alive, I am OK with that.’”
She said that her qualified support for recreational legalization is based in part on her medical experience and in part on her awareness of the very real inequities faced by some racial and ethnic groups.
“If you are a Black kid walking down the street with marijuana, you might have a much different experience with the police than if you are a white kid walking down that same street with marijuana,” Polley said. “To talk about these issues from a medical perspective isn’t really relative because it occurs in the social context.” This means that, she explained, opposition to significant social change like legalization has to be handled with care.
“You can’t make these decisions while ignoring the social issues involved,” she said.
Stein said that Polley’s perspective on legalization reflects what he sees as a “dichotomy” in the world of psychiatry: “Commonly, the older population of psychiatrists do not want cannabis to be legalized. The younger population expect it to be legalized but we want to make sure that there is awareness and money that comes with it.”
Realmuto, for his part, said he doesn’t just see the bad side of cannabis.
“There are some ways that people are helped by marijuana,” he said. “There is this ridiculous fight between the people who find it useful and people like me who say there are harms associated with it, especially for minors. If adults have their own reason for relaxing at night with recreational marijuana, I have no issue with that. It is a different population I’m concerned about, and I’m not going to keep quiet about that.”
The science has been clear for some time and it has been pretty obvious to me that people under the age of 25 should not be using cannabis. I am glad someone has finally come out and said it. Arguing that 21 year olds can use tobacco and alcohol so cannabis should be no different is fallacious. It is clear that it was originally a mistake to set the limit for tobacco and alcohol at 21. Is it alright to make a bad decision simply because we have made bad decisions in the past? Obviously, we can’t roll back those previous bad decisions but there is no excuse for a repetition. As for the argument that young people can obtain cannabis so we shouldn’t raise the age limit is ridiculous. You might as well argue that since it the case with alcohol and tobacco, we should just eliminate all age limits. I doubt many would argue for that.
There are some bad comments here – misusing statistics, pseudo-scientific claims, general anti-drug hysteria, etc. But the suggestion that the DFL leader supporting this is a drug addict is definitely the low point.
We are back to the chicken and the egg here. Is marijuana making people mentally ill? Or are mentally ill people self-medicating with marijuana. There is a real causation/correlation problem with the claims here.
And making it legal or illegal at whatever age) isn’t going to stop any kids or young adults from using. Its just going to stop black kids from getting arrested for it. Legalization will mean the product is regulated and pure. There isn’t a downside here. Just pretend arguments from doctors who work with kids but who don’t actually seem to understand kids at all.
People who already experience psychosis and then use cannabis have their episodes increase (get worse) young people who use cannabis are 5 times more likely to develop schizophrenia than those who do not. And the earlier a person uses cannabis, the more likely they are to develop psychosis.
The science is clear, cannabis is not the safe drug those who want it legalized claim it is. Nor is it the wonder drug to cure numerous ailments either.
The idea that the science is clear or that the nonsense you are spouting in any way reflects the state of actual science on cannabis is absurd. This is nothing more than a misuse of statistics and pseudoscience.
It is not just a right and wrong, left and right, black and white or chicken and egg issue.
The important question that you seem to need to answer is “Should mentally ill people be self medicating with marijuana?” Seems to be an easy answer.
And, stopping Black kids from getting arrested for its use is your argument for legalization … even though it is harmful for those a significant number of users who are less than age 25? You are willing to accept that as a reason for its legalization? Keeping Black kids from getting arrested even though it will be hurting some of you who are too young for it? Seems a bit ridiculous.
And, your argument that the doctors who work with kids don’t seem to know anything about kids …. is equally as ridiculous. Why do we listen to doctors at all? They probably don’t know what they are doing.
“The important question that you seem to need to answer is “Should mentally ill people be self medicating with marijuana?” Seems to be an easy answer.“
It is a very easy answer. And the answer is “yes.” Unequivocally, yes. Now it would be preferable if it were legal and regulated, and actually prescribed. But with so many people lying and promoting anti-marijuana hysteria, self-medicating will have to do.
And yes, the fact that black kids and young black men are disproportionately arrested for marijuana is absolutely a valid reason to legalize. What is ridiculous is the idea that arrests are helping these young people. That the harm from being in the criminal system isn’t far worse than using marijuana.
I’m not sure why you think that doctors can’t be wrong. There are doctors still harming young people with sexual orientation conversion therapy. And while I would not equate those quoted here with those monsters, they are ignorant and dishonest and have very little idea about what is really going on.
So then maybe these young people shouldn’t be drinking alcohol, entering into binding legal contracts, being prosecuted as adults…or joining the military until that age, either. Hell, they probably shouldn’t even be allowed to select a major until their brains are fully developed.
We should have learned something about the prohibition of popularly desired substances 100 years ago. Legalization means that you can regulate it and control it. My experience growing up was that it was a lot harder to buy beer (than weed) because you had to buy beer from a licensed, controlled, audited vendor. I assume that it’s even easier to get weed today, now that it’s starting to be legal everywhere…except Minnesota.
Ample evidence abounds that the brain is not fully developed until mid 20s. But it is a a guaranteed certainty that a mood altering substance cannot possibly have any effect on that developing brain.
I thought we were all a bbn out the science these days. Oh well we just follow science when we like were it goes.
Being about the science would be recognizing that legal, regulated marijuana is preferable than what young people would otherwise purchase on the street. It would be recognizing the utter failure of prohibition and the catastrophic effect it has had on BIPOC. The science is about harm reduction. And while the science should be a rejection of reefer madness hysteria and poor use of statistics and correlation, no one is claiming there aren’t concerns about use among young people.
This is one of those conversations that lacks nuance for many. You can focus on the science of the developing brain, but miss the practical argument of better regulation through legalization. You can hone in on personal freedom for adults but be blindsided by traditionalists who want to push their religious worldview onto everyone else. In the end it will all come down to something that is actually workable in the real world, which will probably be legalization and regulation coupled with public education on the health risks as has been done with alcohol. Dealing with pot and the failed war on drugs in general is something that is long overdue.
Patrick Tice’s argument has far more credibility toward legalization than the previous comments. I am not so much of a “traditionalist,” as I am one who has learned from my own experience, having consumed alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.
I understand that hard consequences for those found to be possessing marijuana and having its chemicals on our bloodstreams is counter-productive and costly to society and the families of those who have been convicted. What a waste of lives we have seen through the barbaric intolerance of past “leaders” in society.
Nuanced conversations, instead of “either/or” harangues have a much more likely probability of influencing youth toward best practices in decision-making.
The vitriol of the writer who spewed, “why allow them to sign contracts…enter the military…choose their own college majors…” lacks credibility and suggests that the writer may have deeper problems with recognizing the arguments put forward by the physician-scientists who are suggesting that youth should refrain from ingesting chemicals found in any of the drugs discussed in this article.
I know of a man who had the largest marijuana farm in northern Minnesota prior to legalization. He cultivated various varieties of marijuana, and was his own quality assurance employee. The effect of his consumption was that he became highly combative and paranoid, and had the bright idea of buying his seven-year old girl, who lived in Minneapolis, a firearm. He was divorced from his wife as a result of his combative nature and his inability to get along with others. He had been appointed advisor to a council we worked on, before anyone got to know the details of his life or personality, and is the only member of a similar group, anywhere in Minnesota, who was removed from service at any time since the inception of advisory councils in the history of Minnesota.
I don’t know the science behind this, but then again…if this is true, we should restrict tobacco, alcohol and almost everything until they’re 25.
Whether or not pot is legal, it’s not difficult to obtain it.
I have known many a young person under 25 who uses, who have done well in college and their careers.
It’s far worse on our young to send them into war zones.
I didn’t see any vitriol or spewing in the argument about the legal rights of young adults – just a well-reasoned argument. And certainly a far better argument than basing public policy on your personal experience with marijuana or a story about a farmer with a lot of marijuana who was crazy.
Gene, I agree with your comment. I accidentally responded to the wrong one.
Should be 21 like alcohol and tobacco. But include funds for specific mental health programming to address cannabis-related psychosis and requirements for budtenders to assess customers for signs and symptoms of psychosis in order to connect customers with that programming. Just as bartenders address signs and symptoms of intoxication, and just as we have really strong institutions for addressing the harms alcohol abuse such as AA, I think we can make a parallel system for cannabis. This is a system which doesn’t ruin anyone’s fun at 21 and also acknowledges that a relatively small percentage won’t react as well to their personal consumption and will need some intervention, hopefully in the early signs of any possible disorder, but available at anytime someone is experiencing a mental health challenge.
I don’t like the myth that mental health disorders cannot be treated and recovered from. People with a psychosis disorder won’t have psychotic episodes their whole lives with the appropriate treatment, both self-care and professional treatment. And we shouldn’t use the myth that young people are at risk of lifelong mental health challenges by having an experience with psychosis in their 20s due to cannabis use as a reason for overregulation that would defeat the purpose of regulation by encouraging a black market.
Does legalizing cannabis automatically mean legalizing strains with 20% THC? I’m okay with Minnesota being the “3.2 beer” state of cannabis legalization. Legalization and regulation will be the only way to have any influence on the strength of the product sold in this state. Yes, determined people will still find ways to obtain more potent weed but most people will take the easy route and buy legally. You’ll never be able to solve the problems that come with drug addiction with criminalization but you can help nudge people toward making better choices.
This column and it’s conversations following ,more than anything else, illustrate why we probably won’t see legal cannabis for years, if ever.
Education about the use of all intoxicants for the purpose of making personal reasoned decisions really is the proper way to approach this issue whether for or against legalization.
It’s only getting easier to obtain Cannabis illegally in the mean time.
This makes too much sense to actually be implemented. Check out Judith Grisel’s book “Never Enough” about how folks are especially susceptible to baked in harmful habits around substances if they start in their teens while their brains are still developing. The only folks in my family with healthy relationships with alcohol consumption are the ones that started in their mid-20s. My family is especially susceptible to alcohol use disorder.
And with cannabis as with alcohol, if you are using it in your teens, your brain will have a desire for it that somebody with a more mature brain would not. I would argue that folks that start binge-using cannabis or alcohol in their teens will most likely need to abstain from either in adulthood because their brains would not be able to rewire from dependence to moderate usage.
Actually, the reason it won’t be implemented is because it makes zero sense. Its nonsense that completely ignores the realities of current drug use among teens and young adults. The people advocating for legalization have been seeing these ignorant, baseless arguments, and give the attention they deserve.
So, a 25 year old brain is too fragile to experience pot… but more than robust enough to handle law enforcement, combat, Marriage, alcohol, driving, and any other chemical a child/adolescent psychiatrist prescribes? Bushwa!
Look, we can’t pushing the adulthood boundary out and we can’t keep inventing different age groups of legality. And I hate to say it but the “science” we get out of the addiction/recovery industry isn’t exactly top notch, as Mr. Terry is pointing out.
So no. You want to warn people, make your case like everyone else, but legal age restrictions 7 years after someone can vote, and 9 years after they can get behind the wheel of an automobile? If 25 year old brains are too to handle THC then what other activities, responsibilities, chemicals, and choices should we be restricting until the age of 26?
Well I guess this explains why 18 year olds are the choice for Military service. “A young brain is full of twigs and sticks. It is an unpruned brain…” I guess pruning “brains” to accept killing other human beings is much easier that way.
As for weed a lot of the folks here are ignoring the fact that current strains are massively more potent that what I was smoking 50 years ago. I can see where it might mess with kids who are using it constantly. We’ll need more data, how many kids are being effected, does that number outweigh the benefits of decriminalization, such as no criminal records for folks who use, no difficulties with student loans, Jobs, housing and such that go along with the criminal records.
Its a complex issue that could use a lot more facts and a lot less bull***t.
Much of the Republican stance on decriminalization has to do with the advantage presently given their candidates when DFL inclined voters become single issue voters and vote for candidates from the two major pot parties:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/09/weed-candidates-influence-minnesota-elections-428461
This is a pretty useful article that disputes this claims of Weed induced psychosis.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/20/marijuana-cannabis-health-effects-issues-mental-health-disorders-science
Look at it this way… I worked with a number of schizophrenics who had their first recognized psychotic “break” while in military boot camp. By definition you could say that their brains were too fragile to handle the stress of basic training. So should we raise the military recruitment age to 25 because the majority of psychotic breaks happen in late teens and early 20’s? Some people experience their first psychotic breaks while traveling alone in their late teens and early 20’s; should we prohibit such travel until people are 26 years old?
Meanwhile, the idea that a schizophrenic, or bi-polar will never have a psychotic break as long at they don’t smoke pot, much less smoke pot before a certain age, is simply ridiculous.
Yeah, people tend to forget that marijuana is actually an hallucinogen, and some people have hallucinatory experiences when they use, and technically hallucination are “psychotic” symptoms (so can be paranoia, euphoria, etc.). But if you’ve worked with this you know that drug induced psychosis clears, whereas psychosis associated with actual mental disorders tends to be chronic without treatment. So if you’re looking at a schizophrenic who had their first “recognized” psychotic break while smoking pot; you’re not looking at pot induced schizophrenia, or bi-polar disorder, you’re just looking at an onset that would have emerged (and in most cases has already emerged, but was just not diagnosed or recognized) anyways.
Furthermore, sustained abuse of any substance that damages organs… will damage those organs regardless of age. Since the organ most effected by pot is the brain, damage can occur to whomever abused the drug, regardless of age. It’s not like if you wait till your 28 to smoke pot you’ll be immune to damage marijuana could inflict.
Furthermore furthermore all marijuana isn’t equal, there can be significant experiential differences based the “quality” and ingredients. In theory one advantage of legalization is the opportunity to regulate production and quality. The experience we currently have with illegal marijuana isn’t necessarily a reliable preview of things to come if we legalize it.
Police are still arresting more people for pot than for violent crimes. If you are Black, it gets you into “the system” and might influence your entire life.
Health issues are important, but illegality leads to substances sold as THC or something like pot that might not be pot at all.
[NORML quote]
“According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, police made 545,602 arrests for marijuana-related violations in 2019. That total is nine percent higher than the total number of persons arrested for the commission of violent crimes (495,871). Of those arrested for cannabis-related activities, some 92 percent (500,395) were arrested for marijuana possession offenses only.”
“Police across America make a marijuana-related arrest every 58 seconds,” NORML Executive Director Erik Altieri said. “At a time when the overwhelming majority of Americans want cannabis to be legal and regulated, it is an outrage that many police departments across the country continue to waste tax dollars and limited law enforcement resources on arresting otherwise law-abiding citizens for simple marijuana possession.”
https://norml.org/blog/2020/10/01/fbi-marijuana-arrests-decline-year-over-year-but-still-outpace-arrests-for-all-violent-crimes/
Richard, while you’re observations regarding the death and destruction criminalization has wrought upon millions, you have to remember… all of that pales in comparison when we consider the possible damage that can happen if our children start “adulting” before they’re brains are ready.
I hope my grandkids can skip their adolescence and early adulthood.
Growing up in America seems to have so many traps. So much addiction. So far their folks are raising them in a sober home, as I was. Yet peer pressure can be very powerful, I know.
That said, it is undeniable that the Black community has suffered disproportionately from laws that seemed made for the random stop arrest that begins the relationship with police. Many young people’s lives are also impaired by THAT experience.
““Police across America make a marijuana-related arrest every 58 seconds,””
Peer pressure and simple curiosity. Fact is millions of people enjoy pot and alcohol without much in the way of negative effects, people can’t help but notice that and get curious.
Another problem with pot related arrests is that relatively harmless minor offenses go on permanent and searchable public records now, and haunt young people for years. That probably does more damage to more lives than the marijuana does, so yeah, every 58 seconds another record is made that pops on every background check from rent to credit and job applications.
Sadly it just goes on…
This morning’s news includes a Springfield IL man who was pulled over and in a search of his car, found an urn that police said tested positive for some illegal narcotic. The driver (Black of course) was put into the squad while his vehicle was being searched.
The driver then became aware that the “positive test” was on his deceased 2 year-old’s ashes. The baby was a victim of neglect by his mother and a boyfriend, a story Springfield police should have known about and been alerted to the driver’s name.
He was released, but police admitted no mistake.